Well, here it is, it's finally come around to re-begin the cycle. Every three years, everyone who actually uses a laptop as a portable thing suffers the realization that their notebook is so inconvenient to use that they're willing to pay for a new one. I call this "The Laptop Season".

The fact of the matter is, notebooks are engineered to be really fragile and have a very short lifespan, especially in comparison to desktops, which can survive for a decade under terrible conditions. If you bring your laptop anywhere it will be subject to damage, from putting it down on a cafe table that had a spill on it, to dropping your bag while your notebook rests inside, to being robbed by some blazed college students that decide that they want to play a quick game of ultimate frisbee with it(?).

I was just talking to a friend that told me her spacebar was broken, which could really be the beginning of the end. It's always something minor that balloons. Five months ago, I noticed that my brother's laptop's monitor hinge was getting a little loose, and now the screen is entirely flaccid and if he wants it upright he has to prop it up on something, which he does. It renders the concept of a portable computer moot. My sister's laptop simply won't turn on anymore.

Another friend, who is further along in the Laptop Season, literally has his monitor splitting because the heat from the vent is melting it. I don't understand how that's not something you catch during development testing -- unless it is something they caught, and they specifically implement delayed problems like this with the intent of encouraging frequent notebook replacement, which puts money in their pockets.

The laptop is a great concept that unfortunately was turned into a cash siphon very early on. Getting a notebook repaired is going to cost you many many many times more than it would to get an equivalent issue fixed on a desktop computer, very often producing a "well it would cost less just to buy another one" situation.

Damn.